'Nights are rotten': Fury over West Gate Tunnel works

By Timna Jacks & Clay Lucas

October 11, 2018 — 11.35pm

Road closures to build the West Gate Tunnel are directing thousands of trucks off arterial roads onto residential streets in Melbourne’s west, infuriating locals with noise and traffic less than two months from an election.

Families in Yarraville, Brooklyn and Spotswood are starting to feel the impacts of the $6.7 billion project, as construction work ramps up on the new toll road.

The project will see a widened West Gate Freeway joined to CityLink via a new tunnel under Yarraville, and an elevated six-lane toll road through West Melbourne.

The new Transurban toll road – designed to relieve pressure on the West Gate Bridge, which now carries up to 220,000 vehicles a day – is scheduled to open in four years.

Around 200 construction staff are already working on the road in Yarraville despite there still being no enterprise agreement to cover the thousands of jobs the project will create.

Advertisement

Contractors are creating the launch sites for two massive tunnel boring machines, to be used when construction of the toll road begins in earnest next year.

Nikolas Brudenell and his two children are awoken nearly every night, as nearly 700 trucks rattle past their home daily on Hyde Street, due to West Gate Tunnel pre-construction works.Credit:Jason South

Nikolas Brudenell moved into a house on Hyde Street, Yarraville, last year because it had a 24/7 truck ban. The father of two is furious an extra 680 trucks and 5220 vehicles now drive daily down his street.

Trucks on a section of Whitehall Street – a road used to get in and out of the Port of Melbourne – have been diverted to Hyde Street until mid next year so a large sewer pipe can be moved to make way for the tunnel.

Mr Brudenell’s family is woken by the noise about 4am nearly every day. “Four out of five nights are pretty rotten,” Mr Brudenell said.

He said the authority overseeing the project was working with residents to reduce the effects of the extra noise.

But emails from the authority show the government is refusing to glaze Mr Brudenell’s apartment windows, despite his proximity to the traffic.

“I’m traditionally a Labor voter, I understand the merits of getting trucks off the road … but there needs to be more support,” he said.

West Gate Tunnel works on Whitehall Street.Credit:Jason South

Chris Dunlevy, a Brooklyn resident, is a spokesman for a local group centred around Millers Road, which will carry at least 4000 more trucks a day once the West Gate Tunnel opens.

He said since pre-construction works had started, Millers Road had become “a nightmare”.

“It has been getting busier for years now but not to this extreme. If you get it at the wrong time it will take up to 12 minutes to travel less than 800 metres.”

He said the government was moving at “breakneck speed to give the appearance this project is well advanced before the election with very little concern for the residents”.

Rosa McKenna, from the Spotswood and South Kingsville Residents Group, also said the works were creating headaches for locals.

She said multiple detours were causing havoc, traffic build-up was much worse than expected, and the West Gate Freeway night widening works were “incredibly noisy”.

Her group’s biggest complaint though was the government’s failure to complete an environmental performance report that is meant to be mandatory.

A report on the environmental impact of the project is supposed to be given to Planning Minister Richard Wynne every six months and then made public. The first report, due last month, has not yet been completed.

“This behaviour does not lead the community to have much trust in the government,” Ms McKenna said. Labor was “treating people in a safe Labor seat with contempt”, she said.

Mr Donnellan’s spokesman said the environmental audit report was being prepared for submission to the minister.

Clay Lucas is a senior reporter for The Age. Clay has worked at The Age since 2005, covering urban affairs, transport, state politics, local government and workplace relations for The Age and Sunday Age.